Our Stuff, Ourselves: More on the Culture of Fridges.

So today I was into my third day of tackling a project that's been ongoing since last December: dealing with sorting items that were displaced to our indoor sunroom (main level) when we had to clear them from our attic to prepare for re-insulation.

Talk about exchanging the solution of one problem for a florid new one. A new problem which feels uncannily like plumbing the recesses of your mind, to look squarely at the very things you try not to think about. It is a psychological clean out, if you will, of my family's relationship to our things. So here is my screed on "stuff" (I warned you. You may want to sit down with a cup of tea to read this one, it's long).

In another post, I mentioned reading an article which led me to a book which has now led me to a three part mini series on YouTube related to the book and the "mass abundance of the middle class." Please watch it but make sure to catch your jaw as it drops. It was a moment of hard reckoning for me. Because I was afraid of the feeling that it was only too easy to slide down a slippery slope into the same kind of reckless overconsumption that was evidenced there.

Nothing like the show Hoarders, mind you, (which I think is a disgusting spectacle to distract us from the more common effects overconsumption has on our lives), but that's what hit home. These were just mothers like me who were trying to successfully juggle the myriad elements of their and their family's daily lives, but were becoming buried under to the point that they've sacrificed the right to a clean, orderly and peaceful home. That's exactly what the book Life at Home in the 21st Century examines. No one starts out wanting or intending to be a slave to stuff. So how does it happen?

From what I can glean from the videos, it's the cheap over-availability of material goods that is largely the culprit. Add to that an organizing culture that has sprung into action to be a band aid on the broken arm of hyper consumerism and you have this perfect storm of people who are slaves to their stuff. I was particularly heartened, validated and irritated by the statement that it's mostly mothers (or perhaps we should say the parent at home in charge of the management of stuff) whose cortisol spikes the most upon gazing at clutter. I think I can relate.

Among the things stored in the many clear plastic bins I had initially planned to neatly catalog each time we sent something upward for safe keeping, were baby items, maternity clothes, old yearbooks, papers, and other memorabilia. It didn't go as well as I planned. Life happened, and organization took a back seat.

How much time do you spend tidying, cleaning, organizing, managing, or otherwise "churning" your family's stuff? How much proportionally do you feel is manageable or even justified? Since when does being a stay at home parent entail this never ending wrestling with things?

Maybe that's why people don't seem to understand what it is we "homemakers" do all day. I offer you this assertion to think about: all the overwhelm is because management of a household in the 21st century is more now than it's ever been, because many of us haven't realized that stuff is the problem, not the solution. Some people head out to the mall just to escape their stuff. And they buy more stuff. How's that for irony? Oh yes, we have all the modern conveniences, which just frees up our time to either buy junk or spend a disproportionate amount of time wrestling with and containing it.

We over parent, over schedule, over buy and over organize all the over buying. We are in a hyper mode on all counts. Then cooking nutritious MEALS, which is more nourishing to our loved ones than any amount of material junk we could buy them, falls by the wayside and we use frozen convenience foods more often than we'd like, saving ourselves a mere (gulp) 12 minutes of time per meal.

These are anthropologists who studied these families! I think their methods and their findings are worth paying attention to. I am fascinated because learning about this book has allowed me to push off some of the guilt I have about how darn difficult it is to maintain a house to the standards that are comfortable for me. As the person in charge of the stuff, and a busy mom with busy kids, the buck stops with me, so I am facing the fact I always knew: it's hard because there's too much stuff. As the man in the video mentioned earlier says, there are no inbuilt intuitive mechanisms and rituals for letting go of what comes into our homes. The weekly garbage pickup isn't enough. We need to get as comfortable with releasing as we are with consuming. And once we've done that, we will be of clearer mind to consider carefully what we purchase and bring into our home.

Stored maternity clothes: "just in case" 

Remember how a carefully considered look at the reality of the typical life of the 1950's housewife made us realize that the whole extreme happy homemaker facade was a construct to keep women at home so the men returning from the war had jobs to come home to? Ironically, I think the American pastime of being "a collector" hit its heyday around this time. What on earth does that have to tell us?

I think spikes in the cultural push to over consume coincide with an at home work force that gets pressed down disproportionately. What kind of forehead slapping will we do in 30 years when someone surmises that all the stuff and subsequent organizing of stuff and the industries around containerizing (is that really a word?) and "professional organizers" was just another way to keep overwhelmed homemakers from realizing their potential? Women can't do a lot of things if they are in a self-imposed gerbil mill of organizing work (I won't even call it housework because it has gone far beyond that).

Our aspirational culture that is built around selling us goods has a lot to do with the simultaneous guilt that arises from overconsumption and its close cousin, chronic disorganization. It's a perfect storm to literally set us up in a situation where it's almost impossible to win. We go to a big box organizing store (you know the one) and see the closets set up with five dresses on display to send you the message you should get this closet and you will be more organized. No! You should have five dresses. THAT is the solution. Stop buying or even looking at those magazines in the grocery checkout that show you images of perfectly organized homes. You won't have one until you stop buying junk.

The famous ELFA closet. source: www.containerstore.com

Modern suburban houses are built bigger to accommodate all the things we own and we in turn feel every square inch must be filled to capacity in order to make all the space worth having. I love you, my sweet urban house from 1925 with hardly any closets and tiny rooms.

Some of these organizing experts make me really wonder. Maybe they have so much time to organize because they've made a business out of presenting us with neatly prepped and primped examples of what things should look like. Another reason I have gotten rid of magazines and catalogs - they just train us to set crazily unrealistic goals. Not to mention they encourage us to solve the problem of clutter by buying more containers to store it all in. I really like Alejandra's tips but I can't escape the nagging feeling that the operative word in the phrase "organizing stuff" is "stuff." I just don't have more time to spend printing out labels and organizing things to that degree. Do you?

The lines on this container top look like prison bars!

This web site brings me hope. I love Leo Babauta, he's an inspiration and a smart guy. It's time for us all to really think about what good all these things do us and how much we can realistically use or even deal with.

A major clean out will bring the stumbling blocks of guilt, re-assessment of how you've spent money, and nostalgia but those are the signs you are making progress. I have to remember this. You do too.

My house is not going to magically sprout more closets and even if it did, I'm not sure I'd want more space because inventorying the items from the attic makes me realize not only did I forget half of what was up there, most of it I haven't interacted with in years and would be happy to have gone from our lives. I don't need more closets or ways to organize...I need less stuff! Few things in my life have made me more attuned to the extreme value of time than being a parent.

The Same Old Song & Dance: The Boomerang Trajectory of Pop Music

During one my many Mom Runs of late (driving to & from school, gymnastics, birthday parties, etc.), it occurred to me that I'm surprised I have become THE MOM who is singing along to the lyrics of THE YOUTH's pop songs.

Embarrassing to realize this. I have been ever more aware lately that it's time to step side stage, and allow the kids to rightfully own their place as tzars of pop culture. I remembered, painfully, how strange it felt to hear my friend's mom singing along in the car with us as we crooned out "Tell Her About It" by Billy Joel in the early 80's, or that time when my lovely mom was really into the song "I Just Called to Say I Love You," and it seemed odd that she was singing the same songs we were.

Put aside your horror at my song choices for a moment if you can, because this was before I had the ability to consume more music than what was on local music stations. I had a few records but my music sources were the radio, and the Air Supply cassettes I pretended to enjoy as my neighborhood best friend listened, transfixed, when I went over to play.

What this is really about is the dominion young people have over the pop culture of their time, and how it basically feels like adults cannot encroach on it. Indeed, as a young person, it seems sad, comical, even shameful to see an adult edge in on what is supposed to be all yours.

By no means is this logical, I just remember the way it felt.

So I thought about this more, and realized why some of those songs are catchy -- beyond the reason that they *are* catchy, they sound a lot like songs imprinted in my memory from my youth: both childhood and early adulthood.

Examples:
Current: Lady Gaga, Gwen Stefani
Sounds Like: Madonna

Current: Coldplay, Sea Wolf
Sounds Like: U2

Current: "A Team" by Ed Sheeran
Sounds Like: Duncan Sheik (voice, if not song style)

Current: "Lights" by Ellie Goulding or "I'm Not Your Toy" by La Roux (c. 2009)
Sounds Like: Yaz

Current: "Locked out of Heaven" by Bruno Mars
Sounds Like: The 80's yelps of Steve Perry of Journey / the beats and sound of Sting of The Police

I've always noticed echoes in music, which helped me along greatly when I lived in LA and was charged with publicizing a new recording artist: it was helpful to be able to cite influences and sounds over the phone when trying to book private events to debut my client before I'd been able to send anyone a CD.

All this reminds me of the wisdom of another refrain we hear echoing in many aspects of our own adult lives: nothing is new. Everything is influenced, most likely sourced knowingly or not, from some other place -- another artist so familiar their imprint seamlessly weaves its way into our lives again and allows us to feel the comfort we so often look for.

Especially waiting in an idling minivan.

Our Once & Future Selves.

In every moment

we're the culmination of the people we once were

and the people we will be.

A wave that crests, curls, and folds in on itself

ever-new and unchanging 

all at once.

If we take that brave, close look, 

we're the same people we've always been

living what seem to be 

many lives in the space of 

this one we're given.

Looking at myself

I see the same eyes and expression.

Things that made me happy then

are the ones that make me 

smile now.

To remember I'm the same 

is a good thing;  instead of running 

away from who I was

toward never-ending self-improvement,

it's a comfort to  

recognize something familiar in the mirror: 

that I'm in a new version 

of my same self,

and that's exactly how it should be.

The Week in Images.

It's been a slow moving week & it's only Wednesday. 

Maybe the strange weather lately has had something to do with it. 

And this month is ramping up to be chock full of 

lovely events and get-togethers,

the kind that can be fun and draining at the same time.

These cold windy days seem to be 

challenging you on more than one level.

Yet there are moments when your husband 

brings you freshly made French Toast

on a beautiful plate,

or 

When your daughter decides to 

throw a birthday party for her favorite

stuffed animal -- cupcakes, candles & all

and you remember all these 

little moments, however tired or heavy 

they sometimes seem,
are laced with kind gestures and laughter
and that they

make up the bright constellation 

of your life. 

When you step outside,
you laugh at the melting snowman

on your front walk

that looks like it's wearing lipstick

because it somehow reminds you of 

the thaw that your own body has been going through.

You manage to make it to
your favorite art gallery

because your gaze is lifted skyward
the moment you walk in the door

and then the winter doldrums vanish

as you are lost in the ambient buzz 

of visitors' voices

and the majesty of the works
that surround you.

You come home with a new 

resolve to notice the little things,

to really see the colors,

to use the found ingredients of your life 

to try something new

to nourish yourself

in ways you've never thought of before.

What's on Your Fridge Door?

Did anyone else read this New York Times article from sometime last Fall?

Titled "What Does Your Fridge Door Say About Your Family" it refers to a book called Life in the 21st Century which focuses on the "material saturation" of our Western lives and how we manage to live with all our...well...stuff.

As if you as a parent didn't have enough to stress you out, like whether your children have enough grit, or if you are sharing too much about their lives online, here is an article about what dark aspects of your personality and lifestyle you have unwittingly projected onto your fridge door. Their extensive research has unearthed...

"a tendency for high counts of objects on refrigerator panels to co-occur with large numbers of objects in the house as a whole. Put another way, a family’s tolerance for a “messy” refrigerator may be associated with a fairly relaxed attitude about high density or clutter in public rooms of the house … Perhaps a place as seemingly unassuming as the refrigerator signals overall family tendencies regarding consumerism and household organization."

(Insert defeated sigh here).

One look at mainstream American media (other than, perhaps, the TV show Hoarders) would seem to indicate that many peoples' homes look like pristine pages out of a home decorating magazine, or one of those home organizing shows on cable, which seem to only exist to keep makers of stacking plastic bins in business. Not so, people, not so. Anyone with children who has that sterile a life certainly either has kids in college, kids in boarding school, or, any minute now, are expecting a visit from their in-laws -- in which case they have swept all the clutter off their fridge an into a box which has been thrown into the coat closet.

Our fridge is one surface in our home that does indeed tell the story of who we are as a family. Posted there are a rotating series of school lunch menus, calendars, the artwork of our children, triumphant spelling tests, notes from friends, snapshots of great memories together, our agreement about family rules, fun magnets and other ephemera of our daily lives. I like to think of it as a collage of our life.

Yes, we have clutter from art projects in process, school books, and too many coats and shoes in the hallway that haven't been put away properly because, frankly, usually the first thing one of us does upon entering is the "drop everything and hug" thing we all do around here. There will be time to clean and organize -- it's not always now. Like the late comedienne Phyllis Diller famously said,

“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the sidewalk before it stops snowing.” 

It is literally snowing as I type this!

After I read the article I did indeed do an organizational sweep of the fridge doors, I won't deny that the article gave me pause. But though initially it felt like a breath of fresh air had swept through the kitchen, after I'd cleared some fridge scraps away, soon my little people were making adorable drawings and handing them to me like jewels. They are jewels to me. Up they went on the fridge, the childhood equivalent of an exhibition space. Then came a few more snapshots. The fridge is crowded again -- but I love it.

Work.

I have just submitted an application to be a remote "Generalist Intern" for a publishing house in New York City.

Is there any more self-effacing job title than this: Remote. Generalist. Intern.

What could possibly suggest more all-encompassing and yet, invisible, work?

Do not forget that interns transact work in an uneven exchange for no pay. Just for the experience.

Behold! This is a situation mothers know much about. Perhaps that, paired with my extensive love of the written word, will make me a perfectly suited candidate! I am not as grumpy about this as I sound.

As my favorite hockey player says: "You miss 100% of the shots you don't take." Thanks, Wayne Gretzky. I know nothing really, about ice hockey, but seem to be on similarly slippery ice.

Happy Weekend!